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Usually when I write anything, I always start with the body so my intro will provide my readers with a great overview of what’s in store, but this time rather than just coming up with a fantastic intro. I’ve came up with an awesome blog title that summons up not only my personal blog, but my life! “Great Things Are Yet to Come” is the perfect statement of where I am in my life right now. No— I am not saying that I am at a rough part in my life right now, but everyone has their peaks and valleys. I am honestly at a point of transitioning.

Transitioning

I can’t exactly remember my resolutions or goals that I had expected for 2014. Who really keeps up with that? I keep up with the present and I live in the moment. 2014 has been an interesting year, full of transitioning and growing. I’ve decided to take on another job in a different industry to hone my craft in the digital marketing world. I’ve even been introduced to a different side of marketing and advertisement. Branding. I’ve moved to a new place and have taken ownership of an adorable yet sometimes annoying cat. Things are looking good for me and can only get better.

The Roadmap

I’ve recently had this thought of setting goals and developing a roadmap for how i’d want the rest of my life to be. I am transitioning ad growing from living so spontaneous to strategic. The problem with living so spontaneous is you have no clue of who you will be or where you will be in the next 5 years. That used to sound fun and exhilarating, but at the age of 25 a little frightening—now. So while I am looking forward to the future, i’m also planning for the future. Although you can’t really plan for the disappointment, failure or despair. You can plan on how to get back up and how to learn from your falls.

I am looking forward to building my brand and seeing where it takes me. I don’t think i’ve fully expressed the gregarious side of myself or the strategic planner. God has opened my eyes to see far beyond the trees, the forest and the mountains. I see a whole different world.

Yours truly enters the list at #77! This is a huge deal. Even for someone who’s been doing social media for a little over two years. To get recognized amongst other social media professionals in the 4th largest city in the U.S speaks volumes. Thanks again Eric!

51-10 are below the fold…

After returning from my weekend trip from San Antonio and spending some much needed R&R with close friends. I have a slight epiphany on life; more specially my health and being more fit. I have always had this epiphany, but wasn’t as dedicated or resilient to stick it out. So while I started working out yesterday. I brought my smartphone to the gym and started scrolling through Spotify. They have a playlist for any and everything, including workouts. They even breakdown the workouts from cardio to hardcore. I pressed Cardio and loved if not all most of the songs that was on that playlist.

Including: Neon Trees- First Things First

New Music Tuesday: Neon Trees- First Things First

Check it out and tell me what you think. Go a step further and share your recent New Music Tuesday discovery!

You can hear almost every Social Media marketer in the U.S sigh in relief as Facebook sheds a little light behind their recent changes in people’s news feeds. No, not the physical changes, but the analytical changes.

Facebook’s New Algorithm and Their Humble Beginning

Facebook is adopting a similar algorithm as Google’s hummingbird. Social Media has expanded and multiplied throughout the years. Meaning more
people are creating accounts and even more people are sharing stories on those accounts. This appears to be a catch 22 or a double edge sword for most businesses as the more people that join these social media channels, the more they can market their brand. However, the more people that join also serves as a competitor for businesses who rely on organic marketing on Facebook. Facebook was originally a website where people could connect with other people by sharing photos and status updates. Video came much later. Then you had the businesses that wanted to tap into this new website that made it easier for them to connect to their audiences and potential consumers. Now that Facebook has an IPO, they’re making their shareholders happy by offering paid advertisements to businesses to gain a larger reach. Because businesses aren’t just competing with other businesses, but also their audiences’ friend’s baby pictures, wedding videos and etc…

What Does This Mean for Businesses and Marketers

The average Facebook user receives about 1500 stories a day! This added competition and decrease in reach has had numerous social media marketers in a panic as it is still hard to determine ROI in social media. TechCrunch recently wrote an article dishing some inside scoop on Facebook’s “Story Bumping”. The news feeds on many Facebook profiles are all determined on the user’s perceive interesting in the person or brand. For example, if you’re a huge soccer fan and you frequently check your favorite team’s Facebook page to get information on their next game, current score or new players added to their rooster. Facebook takes that into consideration and bumps whatever story that soccer Facebook page posts on the top of your feed, ahead of any other story your friends or other brands might have created. In addition to Story Bumping,

Apart from story bumping, Facebook will also start posting certain events in chronological order from when the last time the user logged in or off of their account. This will work for any real-time social media updates like in the previous example being the soccer team. Rather than showing the last score of the game, Facebook will reveal on material that hasn’t shown up in your feed, like the first quarter or half-time.

I think the solution to story bumping from a marketer’s perspective is to create content that keeps your audience on your page. It can be a weekly giveaway, word of the day, deal of the day or whatever. It needs to be consistent, compelling and visual. The consistency will help with the chronological order the content will be on your fans’ news feed.

Facebook will continue revealing more insight behind their algorithm so make sure you tune in!

If you have any questions or experiences with your reach being at an all time low or consistent, leave a comment down below.

This blog will be a little different than my previous blogs, but albeit just as informative and entertaining (hopefully).

If someone had told you that they had an online dating profile about the same time MySpace was popular, you would’ve probably squinted your nose and passed a negative judgement on that person’s self-esteem, hygiene or maybe even had an image of Steve Urkiel go through your head. Thanks to Social Media, today’s pop culture and popular reality TV shows, online dating is considered the norm.

Everyone is online now

Whether if they’re shopping for clothes, reading a news article, streaming their favorite album/TV show or publicly posting their current mood. In fact, I can not help, but notice every time I am out in public, mostly everyone is casually strolling through images on their smartphone or sending a text. The best way to capture someone’s attention is no longer putting on a Freekum Dress or Suite & Tie (well at least not in person). You capture someone’s attention through posting a picture online.

Social Media has fumed the flames of making online dating socially expectable through the usage of #MCM (Man Crush Monday) or #WCW (Women Crush Wednesday) and the notorious #selfies. Celebrities have even started using these hashtags to initiate a conversation or lack there of. There is a reason why Instagram is currently the fastest growing social media platform. Also with their latest feature, Instagram Direct. It is easier for people to connect online without prying eyes.

Instagram isn’t the only image drive social media machine, so is SnapChat. During the earlier stages SnapChat was used predominantly for sexting or inappropriate usage. Ever heard of “Facebook official?” Of course you have, people generally aren’t in a relationship until it is “Facebook official” or shown on Facebook with a relationship update.

With recent popular TV shows on cable networks like Bravo and MTV

Online dating has seemed to be put on a pedestal. Television shows like Catfish, Online Dating Rituals of an American Male and a few TrueLife episodes that highlights long distant relationships and the use of social media, online dating has became THE thing to do. Bravo’s Online Dating Rituals of an American Male is a reality television show that follows around single males who reside in LA looking for dates using various online dating websites. Men can use it as a tool of things to do and things not to do, while women can use it as a sneak peak in the minds of single male online daters. Although there has been an episode that featured a relatively/quasi popular gay YouTube star, Davey Wavey. Each show the men are different, but usually the website are the same (Match.com, OK Cupid, Tender, Grindr, Jack’D, etc…) I can’t lie I have had my experience with online dating, but that will make for another blog post. MTV’s Catfish focuses more on the negative effects and sometimes rewarding outcomes of online long distant dating. Similar to the documentary.

Thanks to all the previous factors of why online dating has became so popular, the next time someone tells you they have an online profile. Your reaction will be more than likely inquisitive and interested.

Comments?

Do you have any experiences with online dating, both negative or bad. I would love to hear them. Leave them down below in the comments section!

So if you haven’t noticed, my goal for my blog is to atleast create one compelling post that is centered around technology and social media. Compelling isn’t quite the word. Helpful would be more accurate.

Twitter vs. Facebook

Twitter is a different beast than Facebook. I mean sure they are under the same social media category, both use hashtags and you’re able to “follow” your favorite celebrities, brands or topics. Twitter is more real-time social media, while Facebook is more relaxed. Twitter’s newsfeed tell you what’s being posted and retweeted on the second, while Facebook depending on how engaging the content is, will allow older content to pop-up on your newsfeed. It is also social media acceptable to tweet minutes after another tweet without flooding your follower’s newsfeed. While Facebook its frowned upon to post three of four posts within the same hour. Don’t believe me? Ask your friends.

Facebook is more formal than Twitter, If you want to “friend” someone you have to send a friend request and the receiving end must accept or deny (there is a following option, but no one really pays attention to that). In Twitterland, depending on the other person’s privacy setting following them is literally one click.

So now that we got the jest of how Twitter is different from Facebook, you want to now start tweeting and grow your follower base. Perfect! Here are some of the best practices I use.

Start Finding Your Twitter Peers

Given, that you’ve already created your bio and an avatar that is either you or represents you. The next step is following things or people that interest you. Without getting to technical or sounding like a Twitter manual, search using both “#” or plain words things, shows, people, places or even brands that you would consider yourself a fan of. Like baseball, search for MLB, #Baseball, #Cardinals, #BatterUp, or any other word/phrase that describes that sport. Do a little research on the Twitter profiles that popped-up. See how often they tweet by the recent tweet, how many tweets have they sent out by the number of tweets at the top and what other pages are they following. If they’re avatar isn’t an egg, tweets a few hours or minutes ago and have a decent Twitter followers/following ration; follow them. However, if they tweeted days ago, follow over twice as much followers than they have and have an egg as their avatar; CLICK AWAY!

Forming Twitterlationships

So now you have Twitter profiles that you’ve started following and if you’re lucky a few have started following you. Your Twitter newsfeed should be chirping and filling up with tweets that gets your excited and motivated to start tweeting yourself. Before you start tweeting, its best to start developing a twitterlationship with the people you follow by making them feel good about the things they tweet. If you like what they’re sharing or tweeting. Retweet them! If you really love what they’re sharing and tweeting. Favorite their tweet. Now you don’t want to go overboard, just sprinkle a bit of love on your newsfeed. This love will soon be reciprocated back when you start tweeting.

Start Tweeting!

Start creating twitter content that is unique and personal to your Twitter account. If you’ve created an account about the business industry you work in, incorporate that. If its you’re daily life, start tweeting to your heart’s desire. If its a parody account of something, have fun and be creative! As explained earlier, hasthags are used on both Facebook and Twitter. Twitter being the originator, has had more success with it. If you want your tweet noticed by people outside of your followers include them. #Not #On #Every #Word. Only the words, names and places that matters to you and your tweet, so when people want to know about the #Cardinals they can search it through the search bar. Tweet someone using the @ symbol, but make sure its the right person. Twitter has MILLIONS of people on their and their names can be identical.

Keep Your Ears Open

Since Twitter is a social media channel, its always a good idea to keep an eye on your mentions and direct message inbox. Your tweets might have attracted someone else’s attention, so they might reply, retweet or favorite your tweets!

Additional Twitter Resources

It is always a good thing to track your personal success and even discover your online identity. You should use Klout to track who you influence, who influences you, what specials Perks have the Klout Gods bestowed upon you and to check your Klout score.

Trending Topics is an awesome tool that tallies up all the topics and hashtags on Twitter that is being tweeted about the most in your area or in the world. You can use this to your advantage by adding your own two cents and staying up to date on the latest topics!

Are you a shutterbug or feel like the content you post on your Facebook is as worth as tweeting it on Twitter. You can always link the two together by visiting Facebook.com/Twitter. This enables all your status posts to be launches as tweets instantaneously. All you comments and likes will not be tweeting or publicized on Twitter.

Do you have any of your Twitter best practices you would like to share or have any more questions? Leave a comment down below!

A fellow colleague shared an awesome BuzzFeed article of a consumer tweeting an image containing two competitor restaurant’s gift cards displayed on the same wall, posing the question “Applebee’s or Outback”. After that the bell sounded and both restaurants were competing to win this consumer over. Once the dust cleared leaving behind multiple clever tweets, hashtags and images. The winner was announced and it was not only the consumer (whom received two free gift cards in this whole ordeal), but also both restaurants.

So who REALLY won?

Their content strategy was not to win this one consumer over. It was to create compelling content that would reach the masses and it did! The question was never whose steak is better than the other’s, it was which restaurant would respond the cleverest and want consumers on the edge of their seats (or smartphones) to experience this mouth watering picture that was being tweeted.

Defining “Social” in Social Media

I think most companies are misunderstanding the “social” in social media with a five second meet and greet or cameo appearances on their audience’s timelines/newsfeeds. Social is building relationships and having consumers or your audience looking forward to what’s next. Applebee’s again, displays a great example to this principle as well. In this BuzzFeed article, a local Applebee’s Facebook business page lucks up on a very loyal and whimsical fan. BuzzFeed unfolds this social friendship with a series of screenshots and a few captions of their own. This example is awesome because it exhibits social media outside of the brand and inside the community.

How are you building your relationship with your audiences? Do you have any awesome social media marketing examples?